It appears that this was exactly the wrong group in which to discuss Lord Vetinari's clock. People keep asking why. Here's a brief answer, but first some background.
Lord Vetinari, aka The Patrician, is a fictional character in a series of books by Terry Pratchett (q.v.) that stretch the imagination with fantastic characters who highlight the foibles of human behavior. There are very few fantasies that I enjoy, but I've read every one of his books, learning something new from each. Imagine that you are the undisputed ruler of a large city. Remaining in that position is a tricky balancing act against the many that think they could do a better job. Vetinari keeps people off balance in various ways, such as knowing what they are going to say before they say it and making them wait in a room that has a clock whose second hand appears to move in random increments. So, Sara White defined its purpose quite well. No two people are alike. I intend to buy the kit. I'm not one of those people who like to play tricks on their friends (if indeed they have any friends). A recent encounter with cancer has convinced me that my time is limited, so I rather like the idea of an element of randomness in the wall clock, masking the inexorable passage of real time. Bill Hawkins -----Original Message----- From: Didier Juges Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2013 7:55 AM To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] A Time-Nut's Worst Nightmare I checked the web site. As far as I am concerned, the novelty factor died after about 5 seconds. I can barely understand why would someone actually spent the time to write code doing that for himself for fun, but making it into a commercial product? How many do you think will be in a landfill before the battery dies? On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 2:06 AM, Sarah White <[email protected]> wrote: > On 5/10/2013 9:52 PM, Ed Palmer wrote: > > Part of me thinks it's cute, part of me wants to kill it. :-) > > > > https://www.tindie.com/products/akafugu/vetinari-clock > > > > Ed > > Agreed... > > I'm just thinking: "Ahhhhh noooooo. Oww oww oww oww ma brainz!!!" > > Just the thought of being off by 250ms is upsetting for me... > > I can't imagine anyone wanting a clock which will be inaccurate by > something like a second or two or perhaps more than that. > > WTF!? Why?! > --Sarah > _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
